The old woman's sentence was greeted with loud applause.
Nibet resumed.
"It is said!... It is unanimous!... Make a quick finish, my lads!... Since each has been injured, let each take his revenge! I say: Death by the hammer!"
In that smoke-thickened air rose a chorus of hate and of vengeance.
"Death by the hammer! Death by the hammer!"
In that noisome lair of the bandits a horrible scene ensued.
Mother Toulouche went groping in a dark corner. She searched for, and found, a blacksmith's hammer. She lifted it with trembling hands, and planting herself in front of the victim, more dead than alive, she said in a menacing voice:
"You did harm to the Numbers! You wronged them! Here goes for that then!"
The hammer described a quarter of a circle in the air and descended in a smashing blow on the wretched victim's face!